Substitute Hero
by jokergirl2001
Summary: Naruto was definitely someone you wouldn't want to get reborn as. Too much pressure if you asked me. Someone up there had a sense of humor, because not only did that happen to me, but apparently my name's Menma Uzumaki. SI!Naruto. DISCONTINUED.
1. Chapter 1

He was not going to sugar coat things or give you a philosophical debate on life or death.

No, he was going to be extremely blunt right now.

He died.

What else was he supposed to do when a bullet hit him right between his eyes?

Funny thing about dying young was that you never expect it to happen to you, even when there were other kids your age dying left and right around the world.

In fact a silly part of being a teenager would be that he actually thought the idea of dying was far fetched. That he wouldn't die.

Well, he was completely wrong.

Death was equal after all.

Death was enlightening to say the least.

He had always thought that at the end of the road, you'd either go to hell or heaven. While the latter sounded appealing, the former was more realistic for him.

When he opened his eyes, he fully believed to see the devil or something, instead all that he could see was black.

He was surrounded by darkness.

That was the first thing he remembered when he woke up.

It was dark, so very dark. It was so quiet, more silent than the eeriest nights. And more importantly he was scared.

He couldn't talk.

Time didn't exist.

Sometimes he'd hear voices, mocking him. They liked calling him useless, telling him that he was just like his father, a dirty old scumbag destined for failure. And that was why he died.

He knew the voices weren't real. They were just his imagination.

But they made the darkness more...uncomfortable. He had always liked the dark, but now? Not so much.

The second most important thing that happened after dying was light.

It was blinding. Annoying. But it was there!

Not only did he remember light, he also heard a baby crying.

That baby was him.

He stopped crying, not because he was trying to act his mental age, but because the realization shocked him into silence.

It didn't deter the people around him, for soon they were cleaning the blood off of him.

He couldn't really see them, his eyesight was crappy.

He heard talking.

"Congratulations, it's a healthy baby boy!"

I barely had the time to translate those words in my head, from Japanese to English, before another voice spoke.

"Look at me, I'm actually a father!"

Well jeez, someone was being the epitome of cliché movie dads, he thought.

Just wait before things go downhill, he'll turn into an asshole. His own father was an example, or rather even the definition of an asshole.

The person who had him in his or her arms gently angled him next to something red, which he assume to be his new mother.

"Menma...I finally get to meet you.."

That voice...

It was so soothing for some reason.

The woman or man who held him took a few steps back.

He wanted to frown, but his body wasn't developed enough for that.

"Okay, Kushina! I know that you're exhausted from the birth, but we've gotta get the Kyuubi completely sealed!"

' _What the flying fish?_ '

Did he hear that right?

Maybe he was just imagining it, but he was positive he heard Kushina and Kyuubi. And he didn't think that there were any parent quite eccentric enough to model their son's birth after a scene from an anime show.

Which probably meant..

He was either hallucinating or this was really happening.

He clearly remember dying so...

' _Fish crap._ '

He felt himself falling before a pair of arms wrapped around him, not gently, but definitely with the minimum care needed to assure his head didn't roll off or something.

"Fourth Hokage, Minato, back away from the Jinchuriki now, or your son will die at the age of one minute."

He literally peed and crapped himself.

He'd have been embarrassed if he wasn't too busy mentally willing Minato to get him away from his psycho former student.

"Back away from the Jinchurki, or don't you care about your son?"

 _'_ _Fuck it, Minato, you better not obey this masked wannabe Madara. Let me die, and go make another Naruto. And do it right this time.'_

"H-hold it, j-just calm down!" Minato urged.

 _'Take your own advice bud.'_

"You should take your own advice Minato, I'm perfectly calm."

 _'_ _Don't agree with me, you fiend! What kind of psycho holds a baby hostage?!'_

And besides, he can totally feel Tobito's hands slightly trembling. For someone as stupid as him, he seemed pretty hesitant in killing his old teacher and redhead sister figure.

Consciense? Or was common sense kicking in?

"Menma!" Kushina yelled.

Well, glad to know they know he was still-wait, did she just call him _Menma_?

No, no, no.

He refused.

This was where he would put his foot down. He didn't complain up until now, but he wouldn't stand for that stupid name.

He glared. Or did a poor impression of it.

Of course, everyone was too busy to pay attention to his needs, so they engaged in a ninja off.

Psycho wannabe Madara almost blew him up.

 _'_ _Bastard's gonna get it in sixteen years, he'll regret ever messing with me. I'll screw him over, and I'll take sadistic pleasure from it, I will hold a grudge.'_

Anyways, Minato saved him in the nick of time and then promptly left him to go save Kushina.

He stared at the ceiling.

The realization of what was going on still not settling in. He knew what was happening, but he didn't want to accept it yet. Just like when you wake up on a Monday trying to trick yourself that it's a Sunday.

...hey, this may sound weird...

But did Minato just leave him in a room with two dead bodies?

Well, if he didn't know what was going on he would call him a bad father. But he saved his life, albeit he thought he was saving his son, but details details.

The only thing Menma could really hate him for right now was the fact that he left him alone.

Cold.

Alone.

Well, at least it wasn't dark.

As if the blond could read his mind he placed Kushina next to him after appearing out of nowhere and successfully scaring the daylights out of him.

Well, now he couldn't hate him. He did leave Kushina with him after all.

"Minato thank you...good luck."

 _'Bah, show Obito who is boss Minato, even if you'll end up dying today anyways.'_

Menma enjoyed Kushina's arms wrapped around him. It was the first and last time after all.

He closed his eyes.

It was probably just a ten minute nap, because soon enough he was awoken by Kushina's voice.

"Menma..."

He opened my eyes, realizing he had slept through almost everything.

"Menma, don't be a fussy eater. Eat a lot and grow up to be a big boy! Take your bath every day, go to bed early, and sleep well! Make friends, it doesn't matter how many...just make sure they're real friends, people you can trust...even just a few is enough. Oh, and study your ninjutsu, I was never good at it, maybe you will be...everyone has things that they're good at and things they're not...don't feel bad if you can't do it all. Make sure you listen to your teachers at the academy. And remember, avoid the three vices of shinobi...don't borrow money if you can help it. Save what you earn from missions. No drinking until you're twenty, and don't overdo it or you'll ruin your body. And as for women, well I'm a woman so I don't know what to say, there's only men and women in this world after all, and you'll want a girlfriend someday. Just try not to pick a weird one...try to find someone like your mother. And fourth warning, watch out for Jiraiya-sensei!"

His mind was blank. He didn't feel like crying or really sad, he didn't even know these two.

"Menma, you're going to experience a lot of pain and suffering. Remember who you are! Find a dream, a goal, and don't stop till it comes true! There's...there's so much more I want to say to you, to teach you about..I want to stay with you...I love you."

He felt like a jerk right now. He didn't belong here. By all means Menma shouldn't exist, Naruto should be here.

Besides...he couldn't lie, he didn't love her. Maybe he would in the future, but..right now? She was still a stranger to him. Still just a character.

"I'm sorry Minato...I took all our time."

"It's okay. Menma, this is your dad. Listen to your motor mouth mom."

He closed his eyes.

He may not love them right now, but he can at least acknowledge their dying wishes.


	2. The Name's Menma

"Menma, stop hogging the mirror!"

Rolling his eyes, a now four year Menma pushed a brunette kid who was a year older than him away from the mirror.

"Stop being annoying Tenten," the boy muttered, giving himself one last once over.

Menma, who still found it weird to refer to himself as that despite almost being in his new body for four years, expected to either look like a carbon copy of Minato or a carbon copy of Kushina. If given a choice, he would have wanted Kushina's hair color with Minato's eye color, but he knew he couldn't be _that_ lucky. But he still expected to get one of the features he wanted.

So imagine his surprise when he didn't get his parents' hair color nor their eye color.

No, instead he apparently had orange hair. Which was a total surprise for him considering he was a brunette in his past life. And instead of having either blue eyes or violet colored eyes, he had a strange mix of the two. If he could describe it, he'd call it violet eyes with blue specks all over it, kind of like a violet-blue color. He found his current eyes _weird_ , but kind of okay, if that makes sense?

It didn't even make sense to him. Hopefully his eyes were just weird enough to seem attractive.

He did escape the one thing he really didn't want though, which was the whisker markings that Naruto had. So the weird hair and eye color were worth it for him.

Well, aside from the baggy clothes he was wearing, he looked alright. If a little malnourished, but then again all kids in the orphanage looked a little on the skinny side.

"Move!"

Menma made a surprised noise as Tenten shoved him out of the way, causing him to fall on the floor with a hiss.

He scoffed as the girl started fussing over her hair, knowing damn well she wouldn't care about it in the future. When he was old enough to walk, Menma expected to be treated like a pariah and be neglected. While this did happen, because of bitchy caretakers and monkeys known as kids, it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Heck, it wasn't nearly as emotionally scarring as Naruto made it out to be.

Then again, he did have an adult's mind which helped to make him actually _think logically_ on how to make things good for him, or at least as good as it can be. For example, he escaped any "incidents" of forgotten wake-up calls or room cleanups by getting himself a roommate. The caretakers might treat him like trash, but they wouldn't extend the shitty treatment towards Tenten.

Yes, he befriended Tenten just to make sure he doesn't get treated like trash. To make sure he would be treated semi-normally at least. Does that make him a shitty person? For using a naive kid?

It doesn't matter.

He was used to being the shitty excuse of a human being already.

"Menma," Tenten whined, earning his attention as she held out her hair ties. "Could you help me out?"

With a resigned sigh Menma got up and took the hair ties from the brunette. He ignored the smug smile Tenten held as he combed his fingers through her hair, separating it in two sections.

"You know, for a boy you're really good at this," Tenten complimented with a hint of curiosity in her tone.

Menma released a non-committal hum as he tied the sections up in Chinese-styled hair buns. He didn't bother even coming up with a lie or anything, Tenten wasn't someone who pushed for an answer after all. Not to mention, he couldn't really give an honest answer. He couldn't tell the brunette that he had a lazy girlfriend that constantly needed someone to handle her hair.

"Let's go!"

As Tenten dragged him away, Menma allowed his mind to wander to cigarettes and nails scratching his back.

He missed it.

He missed the feel of that damned cancer stick between his fingers. He missed exhaling smoke rings. He missed smoking it all away.

He missed the mindless sex. The hate filled make out sessions. The torn clothes littering his floor every morning when he woke up. The feeling of being needed by someone.

He really missed it.

"Kids!"

Menma blinked, noticing that he was sitting at a table with Tenten, with a bowl of what was probably cold porridge in front of him. He turned his head around to locate the caretaker who had just yelled for him and the others.

Their caretaker was a middle-aged woman with already graying hair and green colored eyes. The caretaker was named Reiko.

"What do you think Reiko-san wants?" Tenten whispered to him.

"If you don't shut up we won't find out."

Menma muttered a curse as Tenten pinched his arm.

"Okay, maybe she wants to finally quit? Or maybe someone got adopted? I dunno."

Tenten gave a satisfied nod and turned back to Reiko.

"The Hokage will be visiting today," Reiko announced.

Everyone's eyes widened, including Menma's.

Muttering and mumbling broke around the space they were in.

 _'Hiruzen?'_ Menma clenched his fists tightly. _'Fucking hell...'_

Menma wasn't going to lie. He didn't really like their Hokage. For a lot of reasons, such as the old geezer's lack of proper attention to orphanages around the village or the fact that the idiot made him a scapegoat. A fucking pariah.

Menma sometimes wished it was Hiruzen who died instead of Minato. At least then he'd have a father. He didn't care that Hiruzen dying would mean Asuma being an orphan or Konohamaru not having any grandparents. Menma never claimed to be a saint after all.

"He'll be here at two, so I expect all of you to go-"

Menma stood up and walked away.

No one would care enough to notice after all.

Well, aside from Tenten. But the brunette probably won't notice until Reiko's done talking.

It was too early for him to care about any possible interaction with Hiruzen. Heck, if he was lucky he'd be able to just play truant like he usually does when "important" guests came to visit.

* * *

Naruto's favorite food was ramen.

Menma's favorite food was dango.

But, funnily enough, Menma mostly ate ramen whenever he was out.

Why?

Because he was only treated like a proper human being at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. Why would he go eat at a place where he would be treated like trash when he could go eat at a place where he's treated like a customer? It didn't matter that he preferred dango. He preferred eating at the Ichiraku ramen stand.

"What can I make you today Menma?"

Menma glanced at the menu behind Teuchi, his eyes scanning over the options. "Pork ramen."

Teuchi grinned at him, "Coming right up!"

When Teuchi's back was to him, Menma allowed himself to smile. Yeah, ramen may not be his favorite meal, but Teuchi was his favorite adult in general.

"Anything interesting happen?"

"Nah, there's just a guest coming over later."

Menma relaxed as Teuchi chuckled.

"Playing truant as usual, huh?"

Menma shrugged, "I'm not getting adopted either way. No one likes me."

Another thing he liked about Teuchi? Teuchi didn't bother with false reassurances. The man didn't lie to preserve his feelings. No, Teuchi was an honest person who didn't try sucking up to him or pitying him.

"Well, I like you well enough. Ayame does too."

"Then why don't you adopt me?"

Menma smirked as Teuchi tensed up. Yeah, Menma knew it was a dick move of him to ask that. He knew that there was probably a rule against adopting a Jinchuriki. But he still wanted to see Teuchi's reaction.

"Menma, trust me, if I could-"

Menma yawned, cutting the cook off. "I was just pulling your leg, Teuchi."

Teuchi relaxed, releasing a small laugh, "Kid, ya really have quite the silver tongue, ya know?"

Whistling an innocent tune, Menma watched as Teuchi put on the finishing touches of his ramen. At this point, Menma was sure he himself could replicate Teuchi's ramen. It wasn't like there was any special ingredient to it or anything. But, our main character still preferred to buy it. If only because the company made it taste better than it really was.

"You going to become a ninja?"

Menma froze at the quiet question, chopsticks hesitating above his bowl.

 _No._

He didn't really consider the possibility of becoming a ninja. In fact, he had subconsciously assumed that he would basically live in the orphanage before getting a legal job so he could afford to move out. Then, when he's stable enough he'd get into the dark side of the trades like he was in his past life. He'd probably get into smuggling drugs or selling valuable merchandise.

"Menma?"

Easy money was the trade he lived by and ended up dying by.

Yeah, he knew it was dangerous work. But being a ninja was also dangerous work.

"Oi, Uzumaki, you're looking pale..."

Menma's eyes widened.

 _Uzumaki._

Nononononnononononnono...

He couldn't _not_ become a ninja, could he?

He was the fucking Jinchuriki. There was no way they'd let him do as he pleased. He'd probably get manipulated or forced into joining the Academy. Then he'd end up graduating and being conditioned to lay his life down for the godforsaken village he lived in.

"Menma!"

Menma jerked back into reality, eyes focusing on Teuchi's fingers which had just flicked his forehead, "Y-yeah?" he casually asked, failing to keep his unease away.

Teuchi gave him a concerned look, "Are you okay kiddo?"

 _'No, not really...'_

"Yeah."

Teuchi frowned.

"As for your question," Menma rolled his shoulders, "I have two years left before I join."

He didn't bother showing his distaste. It wouldn't change anything.

"Ah, so you're planning to join the Academy."

Instead of verbally confirming, Menma continued eating his ramen.

* * *

The sun was already gone by the time Menma had strolled back into the orphanage.

He paused after he closed the door, noting how silent it was. Usually, the kids would be running around making a lot of noises until their bed time at eight. Furrowing his eyebrows, he strained his ears to try and locate where everyone else was.

"...become a ninja?"

Suddenly, he heard a chorus of kids yelling agreements.

"Yeah, I wanna be a ninja!"

"Me too!"

Scowling, Menma made his way to the spacious living room the orphanage had, which was enough to fit all forty orphans living in the orphanage. Pausing at the door, his scowl deepened when his eyes landed on Hiruzen Sarutobi.

The Hokage was sitting on a chair, surrounded by kids of various ages who were all sitting on the floor.

"I wanna be just like Tsunade-sama!"

Menma didn't even bother sighing at Tenten's outburst or the chorus of agreements that followed it.

"To answer your question," Hiruzen started, effectively making everyone go quiet as he looked directly at one of the orphans, "Yes, you can become a ninja. I'm sure Reiko-san will explain the process once you're old enough. Now, is there any other question?"

Menma pushed the door open loudly, earning everyone's attention.

"Menma!" Reiko yelled, glaring at him.

Menma lazily eyed every single person in the room before looking Hiruzen directly in the eyes. Hiruzen's facial expression was practically blank, not showing surprise nor anger at his rude behavior.

"Yeah, I have a question. When the hell are you leaving?"

Gasps filled the room.

He managed to catch a look of surprise filter through Hiruzen's face.

"Menma!"

Menma didn't react when Reiko pinched his arm, _hard_. "I'm sorry Hokage-sama, he's-"

"It's okay," Hiruzen cut Reiko off, eyeing the red mark appearing on Menma's arm with a frown, "There's no need to harm a child."

While Reiko flushed in embarrassment, Menma couldn't help but scoff.

 _'Yeah, says the man who sends children to war.'_

"Is something wrong?"

Menma crossed his arms, not bothering to portray any respect towards the man in front of him. "Yeah, instead of entertaining us, shouldn't you be doing your job? No wonder this village is shitty, considering its leader slacks off to go hang around with kids."

Hiruzen simply smiled at him, "A leader's job is to ensure that the future generation is competent. What is your name?"

 _'As if you don't already know my name.'_

"I'm Menma Uzumaki, commit it to memory."

* * *

 _ **Chapter End.**_

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** I'm back! For those of you who didn't know, I was on a field trip abroad. And now I'm back with this update. I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. As for Menma's personality, I wanted him to be as realistic as possible and considering the information of his past life, he couldn't suddenly be a cheerful kid in his current life, no?_

 _I forgot to say this, but in this fanfiction, there are a lot of key/main characters. Tenten is one of them. I'll reveal the others as they appear._

 ** _Questions:_**

 ** _1\. What do you think Hiruzen thinks of Menma?_**

 ** _2\. Dango or Ramen?_**


	3. Behind the mask

Menma looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, eyes not straying from the nasty bruises covering his sides, stomach and probably back.

No, he wasn't being abused.

Not directly anyways.

The caretaker couldn't hit him or anything, so she let the older kids do her dirty work for her. How did Menma know? Well, he didn't believe in coincidences. So, when the kids who had beaten him had gotten a bigger allowance than usual, he did the math.

Two plus two will always equal four after all.

Really, Menma couldn't even be pissed. He was impressed, if he was being honest. He never expected the caretaker to be smart. Well, smarter than the average idiotic civilian anyway.

Aside from that, the orange haired boy couldn't wait to get out of the hellhole he lived in. The kids were all annoying. The food was always awful. It was always loud. The water was always cold. Need he go on?

Sighing, he covered up his upper body with an obnoxiously orange sleeved shirt, _'It'd be a good time for you to heal me, you big ball of orange...'_

As usual, he didn't get a response from the Kyuubi.

Menma threw a glance over his shoulder, eyes softening at a snoring brunette. He heard her crying herself to sleep last night. He knew it was because of the kids at the park who all had a mother and father. Something which Tenten, and in retrospect the whole orphanage, didn't have.

But Tenten was a special case at the orphanage.

Her parents weren't dead. They put her up for adoption. Somehow, he knew that definitely hurt more than your parents being dead. It was pure abandonment after all, pure rejection. And sure, maybe they had their reasons, but it still hurt Tenten.

It was currently seven thirty and he didn't really want to wait for the brunette to wake up. He knew that Tenten wouldn't be up until at least nine. He'd comfort her then.

He had other things to do.

Such as getting payback.

Smirking at the thought of revenge, he grabbed his worn out backpack that was filled with the things he'd need for a successful _prank_ on the caretaker. No, he wasn't prank-obsessed like Naruto, he simply believed in the concept of an eye for an eye.

Whistling like the innocent boy he definitely wasn't, he leisurely made his way over to the caretaker's office.

He started off simple and re-arranged the files in the cabinet so that it was no longer in the proper alphabetical order, absently stuffing his and Tenten's files in his backpack to read over later.

Then he drowned Reiko's chair in superglue. Just to mess with Reiko, he added superglue to the objects that rested on her desk, making them stay firmly attached to the desk.

Before he moved on from the desk he drew a mustache on Reiko's portrait of herself.

As a final touch to the simple office, he added the classic door prank. But, instead of a bucket filled with water, he filled it with insects, worms and spiders. Real ones.

* * *

.o0o.o0o.

* * *

Tenten woke up to the sound of yelling and screeching of Reiko.

Curiosity kicking in, she got out of bed and stumbled upstairs to where she knew Reiko's office was, and the location where the yelling came from. In her head, various scenarios played out.

She imagined Reiko yelling at an orphan.

She imagined Reiko being afraid of a cockroach.

Heck, she even imagined Reiko being attacked by a ninja!

When she arrived at the scene, pushing and shoving the crowd of kids standing in her path, she finally stood in front of the opened door, getting a clear view of what the problem was.

She giggled.

Really, she tried holding it in.

But she couldn't help herself.

It seemed like the others couldn't either, because they burst out laughing.

Why?

Their caretaker, Reiko, was apparently glued to a chair while being covered in various insects and spiders.

Tenten's giggling turned into laughter when Reiko finally managed to stand up, only to stumble straight into her desk, breaking it.

* * *

.o0o.o0o.

* * *

Menma bit the inside of his cheeks, feeling a bit frustrated at the lack of information his records had brought forward. Not that he expected to find something noteworthy, but he did expect something that he didn't already know.

Basically, his file was almost blank.

The only things written were his name, birthday, physical features and the records of his ongoing years in the orphanage.

No hospital name was given. Then again he wasn't born in an hospital. Mother and Father's name were left empty, which was a given considering no one knowing who his parents were was the whole point of being Konoha's scapegoat.

Putting away his file, he grabbed Tenten's.

As expected, Tenten's record of her ongoing years in the orphanage was flawless. No acting out or bad behavior.

But Menma wasn't really paying attention to that.

He wanted to know who the girl's parents were.

Father's name was left open.

But the mother's name wasn't.

 _Tenka Himeko._

Menma's eyes were drawn to a hasty scribble on the bottom of Tenka's name that informed him that the woman worked in the Red-light district of Konoha, specifically at _Hime's Daydream_.

He placed the file in his bag and slung it on his back.

"Tenka Himeko," he tasted the name of Tenten's mother out loud, wondering if Tenten was an accident or not, "Prepare for a visit."

On cue, Menma's stomach growled.

 _'Right after I eat.'_

* * *

"Stop," Tenten weakly protested as Menma dragged her through the almost empty streets of Konoha.

It was six in the morning.

Six.

 _Six_.

Tenten wasn't a morning person. Well, an early morning person at least. She was a morning person after nine. Not three hours before nine. And she didn't care if that made sense or not, because she wanted to sleep.

Besides, Menma had no right to force her out of bed and force her to change clothes. Heck. He didn't have the right to undress her and dress her up. She'd have to tell someone on the boy or kick him herself.

"Stop!" Tenten repeated, digging her feet into the ground and forcing Menma to stop.

The boy looked at her with his usual bored face, "What?"

Tenten's eyebrow twitched in anger, "What?" she repeated, "First you wake me up early, then dress me up like some sort of doll, and _now_ you drag me off to Kami knows where without my permission!"

Menma blinked at her, "So?"

Tenten reeled back and sent a punch to his face.

A punch which he easily grabbed.

It was then that Tenten noticed the tired and slightly sleep deprived look he had. Taking a breath through her nose, she finally noticed the odd smell of different perfumes hanging off of Menma.

Then she realized something.

Menma wasn't in their room last night.

"Where have you been Menma? What's going on?"

She was worried. Very worried.

Menma had probably gotten into trouble again, hadn't he? Why didn't he ever tell her anything until the last minute? Didn't he trust her enough to actually help him out when he needed it?

Weren't they friends?

Friends didn't keep things from the other, did they?

"...I was the one who pulled a prank on Reiko," Menma finally said after a moment.

Tenten blinked at him, not being able to keep the deadpan from her voice as she said: "I kind of figured considering you never came back home."

"That place isn't home," Menma coldly said.

Tenten wasn't in the least concerned with the chilly tone, "So, what does that have to do with waking me up at six?"

"Technically, I woke you up ten minutes _after_ six. I took a shower at six."

Tenten sent her friend a quick glare, "You still haven't answered the question."

"I stole our records from Reiko," Menma casually admitted, as if he didn't commit a crime, "Turns out, I'm a mysterious orphan. There's basically nothing on my record about me that could help me find out anything about myself."

Tenten allowed Menma's words to fully kicked in.

He stole _their_ records.

Meaning, he had hers too, didn't he?

"...what about mine? What did mine say?" Tenten anxiously bit her lip to keep herself from asking about her parents.

"It didn't say anything about your mother. But, I did find your father's name. Tadashi. After doing a little bit of research, I've figured out where he works. Figured I'd take you to meet him."

Tenten couldn't help herself.

She tackled Menma into a hug.

Sure, she was nervous about what would happen once she was done confronting her apparent father. But Menma went through all the effort to help her out, didn't he? He acted cold and indifferent, but in reality, he really did care, didn't he?

"Get off of me," Menma ordered.

"Nope!" Tenten tightened her grip.

"We gotta go meet your old man."

"It can wait!"

"...you have cooties."

In response, Tenten planted a wet and sloppy kiss on the boy's cheek.

* * *

 _ **Chapter End.**_

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** very short chapter, I know...and I'm sorry. Next chapter I'll try to make it longer. Promise. _

**_Questions:_**

 ** _1\. What do you think of Menma's friendship with Tenten?_**

 ** _2\. Who will be Menma's best friend?_**


End file.
